HSBC said revenue fell from 32.9 billion dollars (£24.7 billion) in the first half of 2015 to 29.5 billion dollars (£22.1 billion) in the first six months of this year.
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HSBC also cautioned “it is evident that we are entering a period of heightened uncertainty where economics risks [are] being overshadowed by political and geo-political events”.
Based on the facts now known, it is not practicable at this time for HSBC to predict the resolution of this matter, including the timing or any possible impact on HSBC, which could be significant.
Profit after tax sank 40 percent on-year to $2.61 billion, the firm said in a statement, but assured it had weathered the Brexit storm “securely”.
While investors interpreted the new guidance as pragmatic, analysts at Shore Capital said they were “less than convinced” by the management’s pledge to maintain the dividend, noting that both Gulliver and Chairman Douglas Flint are set to step down in the next couple of years.
Last year, HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver announced a three-year strategy to reduce the bank’s global operations, cut annual costs by US$5 billion, and shed 50,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the FTSE 100-listed bank unveiled a share buyback programme worth up to $2.5bn.
The fallout would require the bank to re-position in Europe, Mr Flint said.
It is now witnessing slow economic growth in China, coupled with the possibility of a recession-like situation likely to emerge in the U.K. All of this have forced it to lay off thousands of employees and redeploy assets worth $150 billion in the Asian market.
Once a sprawling bank across 87 countries, HSBC has been exiting businesses and countries to improve profits and cope with tougher regulations since the financial crisis. That task has been made more hard with the United Kingdom economy projected to slow after the country voted to leave the European Union.
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The lender’s shares rose as much as 1.9 percent after the buy-back took the sting out of a drop it reported on Wednesday in January-June pretax profit to $9.7 billion, just below an average estimate of $10 billion compiled by Thomson Reuters. The figure may be boosted to 12.8 per cent this quarter from the proceeds of the sale of the bank’s Brazilian business, it said.
